SP: Chapter 14. Reflection of the Wolf

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil–he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”

He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you–and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

—Author Unknown

When he returned to class, he felt that all eyes were on him, but he only noticed the eyes of two people: Handa and Takahashi. The rest of the students were speaking in hushed tones to themselves. Kato made eye contact with Takahashi, but then Takahashi broke it to look at Handa. Kato didn’t want to make eye contact with Handa so he put his head down and went to his seat.

The chime announced the next class to begin and a different instructor came in to teach the World Literature class. He introduced himself as Father Joseph for the benefit of the new students. He was quite an old instructor, Kato guess 60-ish. He gave a bit of a lecture on some pages of the current book being discussed in class. Since Kato was new, he would have to spend quite a bit of time catching up in the newly assigned book as the rest of the class were halfway through it already. Thankfully the assigned book had been translated into Japanese. He had quite enough of English for one day.

Kato did his best to keep himself as completely distracted as possible. He was just emotionally worn out. After the instructor’s short lecture, he allowed the students to read and do some homework related to what they were reading. Kato found himself reading the same words over and over. He couldn’t keep his mind from wander. He thought about his mom, his aunt, this crazy-assed school, the lunch from hell, Tachibana, Handa… Takahashi….

Kato reflected on the bathroom incident, oh so fresh in his mind. Handa was trying to—No! He was not going to complete that thought. He couldn’t believe how angry Takahashi was. Why did he do that? Because of some damned seme/uke bullshit? He should have left well enough alone. Handa was going away, he reasoned. A little voice somewhere in his head spoke up, He was trying to protect his uke. He looked over at Murata, a pitiful sight. Nobody tried to protect him. Maybe he was really trying to protect me. But why? I’m nobody to him. Won’t he do the same to me when I refuse to have sex with him?

Against his better judgment, Kato looked over at Handa. There was nothing to see there, Handa had his head down on his desk. Then, he looked back to see Takahashi, which caused Takahashi to look up and meet Kato’s eyes. He wasn’t really sure what that complex expression on Takahashi’s face meant. Somehow, he felt there was a little sadness in his eyes. Kato felt instant guilt crush him. Maybe I should have least thanked him, instead of blowing him off, thought Kato. He hadn’t even thanked him for the extra biscuit this morning, which happens to be right now happily awaiting Kato’s return. Still, he’s a wolf, and I’m a rabbit. Somehow, I think this won’t end well for me, he concluded. He boldly whispered, “Thank you” to Takahashi, turned around, and went back to reading the same paragraph over and over again until end of class.